Saiyan Awakening

Chapter 4- Heart of Ice

"We have lost our homeworld. We had to bear the cruelty of watching a blast rip our beloved Garmia to pieces, as we ran in our refugee ships. However not all is lost, our world may be gone, but we can still fight for the ideals of our world. To live as one chooses, to love that one wishes, to be judged for your abilities and virtues and not who your father was. So my fellow guardsmen, indeed my fellow Garm, let us fight and live. Let us avenge our world and bring pain to our enemies. Bardock offers us a chance to build a universe that the founding fathers of our republic would be proud of. For Garmia."

-Commander Tiamat of the Republic Guard, on the eve of the Battle of the Alliance in 745 AD.

On Arlia, the Resistance prepares for the second onslaught, this time led by the Planet Trade's best warrior. On Kanassa, Prince Vegeta fights a hard battle against Planet Trade forces, fighting that is going to leave fields of dead warriors in it's wake. On Vegeta, a Saiyan Warrior comes home, but will soon be walking into a plot that will be orchestrated by greedy man. And the fate of a Saiyan captive is revealed. This is not the universe you knew; this is the Universe of the Awakening.



Arlia's Solar Orbit-

The warship sat behind the star of the Arlian System. Its heat shield could protect it for 3 hours and they were quickly approaching the end of the first hour. The bridge was quiet and unlit. The protective window shields were down. The Nightglider was ready for battle.

In the captain's chair was an alien of peculiar form. It was covered in hard scales. The dark green tint of these scales made it hard to notice at night. Its long snout occasional opened to reveal the long rows of razor sharp teeth and the two-foot tongue. It stood six feet and was rather thin but carried muscularity about it. The scars on its arms and face confirmed its rank. This was General Drake Tepis of the Selan Lords.

He opened it eyes; the black slit in the center opened to aid its sight and the blood red iris of the creature receded. Before him was two aliens. He turned to his Selan Captain and then the Kra Ground Commander. "Commander point five."

"We land troops at the five landing sites and then march to the Arlian Capital post haste."

"Captain point six."

"We bombard the Arlian Capital from space."

"Commander point seven and eight."

"Groups five and four split from main attack. Five takes the spaceport and four screens the rear of the capital."

"Captain point nine."

"The Enigma takes up an atmosphere position above Arlia's capital while the Nightglider deploys jammers."

"Commander point ten."

"Group one takes the offensive against the capital, while three bunkers. Two then flanks the line, while four…"

"Commander go back to your tactical screen and memorize the entire battle script again. Then come back here and give it to me verbatim."

The commander marched off. "Weren't you a little soft, Drake?"

Drake made a hooting sound and then flicked his tongue out and wet his eyes. "He is a good commander Rex, he just needs to learn how to follow orders. I would usually allow him to take the initiative but in this case we need to stick to the plan for as long as possible."

"Then why not assign another."

"Because when the plan goes sour, and it will, we need someone who is confident enough to take the initiative and smart enough not to get a lot killed in the process. We are fighting a formidable force, in this world. An entire strike group lost."

"Is it true that Bardock is among them?"

"Yes."

"Then how can any plan succeed if one is fighting a precog?"

"That is assuming it is true. I am acting as though it isn't. If Bardock is a precog, I can't defend against that, I don't know if one can, so I will treat this scenario as if he weren't."

"And if he is?"

Drake gripped the pendent on his neck and closed his eyes. "May the Great Dragon walk with us in the dark places we must go." Rex turned back to his station and Drake withdrew into his mind formulating and trying to get inside his opponents' decision circle. "He expects us to fight like the Planet Trade, if we…hmmm."



Planet Kos, Regency House of Zarbon-

Fasha fell on the floor of her cell and vomited into the drain. Zarbon had spent the last two hours forcing her to eat a ton of food. It was her punishment for serving him poorly cooked meat. What she hadn't known until now was that the food was poisoned with an anti-acidic laxative. This forced her to purge everything in her belly.

She finally emptied and collapsed against the wall. She was trembling from the damage to nervous system. As she closed her eyes, the cell door opened again and Zarbon grabbed her arm and yanked her out.

He dragged her through the dark corridors to his torture chamber. She began to struggle and dig in her heels. Zarbon turned smiled a sly smile and continued to drag her. He entered the chamber and put to cuffs on her wrists and another pair on her ankles. She was in the center of a spotlight and he stood in front of her holding a control pad.

"What are you?" he asked.

"I am a Saiyan Warrior." Electric volts traveled up her body from the cuffs, burning nerves.

"Wrong you are a slave. Now what am I to you?"

"You want to know?"

"Yes."

"Frieza's tail-licker." The look in his eyes was worth the pain. Pure fury and unintelligent rage boiled through his face. It's in fact worse then butt-kisser, since it also means you have homosexual leanings, since the tail of male frostian is where they keep their genitalia.

Zarbon pushed down on the button and the worse pain Fasha had felt, in this game, sprang up. She twisted and convulsed on the floor, but when it ended he picked up her chin with his boot. "Lick the boot."

She spit on it then laid her head on the floor and went to sleep.



Planet Kanassa-

The plan had gone well after the artillery barrage at the Training Facility, but Vegeta had a sickening suspicion that things were about to get complicated again. They strike force had split into two groups one marching toward the north of the research site, one to the south. They would turn on it together and hit the site at the same time forcing the units defending it to divide their resources and attention.

Once again as they approached, they found no pickets. This was starting to bother Vegeta; it was like they were goading the Resistance to fight on the Traders terms. The Facility came into view as Vegeta across a mountain ridge that screened his approach and then the sky lit up. Pulse guns and laser cannons on the peaks started firing at the Resistance. "All units drop to the ground." He let the sky drop him and landed with a painful thud on the hard, rocky ground. He heard the now familiar sound of artillery dropping both high explosive and air burst shrapnel shells on his forces. His forces started to throw shields and march across the terrain. As they climbed up the mountainside a new terror greeted him. Mines popped out of the ground and tore chunks from his forces. As he got passed the minefield and still below the peak guns, he thought he was safe and could regroup. That's when the specials came out to play.

Some dove into his conscripts and some took positions above them and started firing scatter shots. Vegeta took out of one the artillerist with a ki blast. One grabbed his arms and piledrived him into the ground. Then as he pulled himself out the crater three jumped him. He ripped off one's head and threw at another. He took out the last of these by ripping out the fool's heart. The last three artillerists fired scatter shots right down on top of him. He didn't get out in time and the feeling of burning flesh faded into darkness.



Arlia-

Bardock called a meeting of all his commanders. Drake was coming. It was a circular table. Beeta sat to his right. Tiamat to his left and across Dagul. "Well, we have one of the most formidable and cruel commanders coming to visit us and he has no interest in our beverages. Does anyone know what he is like?"

"I do." It was Beeta. "His reputation proceeds him but it is a lie. Oh he is the best strategist; the lie is that he is cruel. He isn't, he is one of their nicest officers."

"How do you know?"

"When I was training to be an officer, he was an instructor of Troop Frugalism. That was what he called it. The only time he performed an act of cruelty was when he impaled five assassins for the attempted murder of his king."

"Got what they deserved huh?"

"They didn't do it for any idealist reasons, they did it so another lord could take the throne. Drake didn't believe in the monarchy, but he didn't want a civil war. He once told me, 'Just because one is born to be king does not mean they were meant to.'"

"Does he have a favorite strategy?"

"No, he runs each battle by getting inside his opponent's decision circle, he figures out what they are going to do, what they think he is going to do. When he has, he makes them think they were right and then really does something else. The confusion is enough to kill most of the time. In his past twenty missions, he has gotten his opponents to negotiate a surrender, saving those races from total extermination."

"Will he retreat?"

"That is the one thing he drilled in us everyday. 'There is no shame in retreat, there is no honor is dying for a lost cause.' He'll run if he has to. He approaches every situation as though it were a stuffed drain. What is the quickest way to do, what is the least expensive, what is the most efficient. That is how he works."

Bardock spoke up. "Will he defect?"

"I don't know. He hated how the Planet Trade worked and always lobbied for his world to secede from the Planet Trade. That is why he is so willing to ask for a world's surrender and discusses terms. But he is loyal to his world and his people. He won't abandon Sela."

"One last question. If you had to fight him, could you kill him?"

"Yes."



Kanassa-

Nail stood in front of the detoriating battlefront. Vegeta's entire strike force was decimated and had retreated to conserve its remaining strength, but he had a plan. 'Now Slug sees why it is wrong to rely on mindless monkeys. Bardock is the exception not the rule.'

His main column had entrenched, but his personal team, with him among them, crept through the tunnels in the ridge and surfaced near the Research Facility. Nail carved a hole in the wall. A member of his team sunk his claws in the wall cutout and pulled it away. The team entered.

Nail took the point as the roamed through the halls. Their first objective was the artillery cannons. He sent half his force through the base toward the command center. The other half went with him to the courtyard. Each member had a pad, which showed the layout of the base. Bardock's spies were everywhere.

Nail saw the cannons in the courtyard. Five mobile artillery batteries, each guarded by three conscripts, plus the cannon's crew. Nail and his team flew out of the corridor and into the courtyard as fast as possible. Two of the cannons' guards were caught unaware and those guards and crews were liquidated with a few well-placed punches and kicks. The third and fourth crews surrounded their guns and fired bolts at their attackers. The fifth crew began dismantling their gun while the guards started firing at the captured guns. Nail took out the fourth crew by himself and his compatriots routed the third crew. The fifth was hit with a concentrated beam strike.

Nail and his group rushed through the halls again toward the in-battled command center. Three heavy blaster cannons were filling the hallway with plasma blasts. Nail peeked over the edge and sited the cannons. "Captain hit the right side with an eye laser barrage." The captain across the hallway opening nodded and turned his head across the corner. His eyes lit up and then fired twinjets of energy down the hall. The smell of melting metal and burning flesh washed down the hallway. Nail turned his head around the corner and did the same. He saw his beams hit the target and starting to bore holes into the cannon's barrel. The metal fell off in molten chunks and then hit his objective, the batteries power core. The flash heating of the plasma coils was more than the coolant device could take. A reverse power flow went through the gun to get energy out of the coils but the superheated gas also escape. Nail turned away as the ball of super heated gas escaped the gun and vaporized the other guns and their less resilient crews. The fireball traveled half the distance to Nail before losing its momentum and receding.

Where Nail's forces should have found bodies and wrecked machines, instead they found globs of cooling molten metal and blacken walls as the only remains of the soldiers who had bravely but vainly defended this hall.



Arlia-

The world stood in his view. It was a desert dry world. So much like Sela. He wanted the dryness, his time on Frost was not pleasant, and it rarely was. One joy of this mission would be the climate, if the only. Frieza ordered him to exterminate the world and all those on it. He never thrilled in the savagery of the Planet Trade; he hated the fact that his race was such a good and willing ally of Frieza.

"Burn in hell, you wretch. This is the last world I destroy for you. After this I am retiring and going to spend the rest of life growing plants on Sela." He was in his private quarters, regaining his strength and focus, but he was not alone."

"Even in here, old friend, it is not wise to speak of Lord Frieza such. He has ears on many heads."

"Not yours I trust." Rex stepped from the darkness toward the viewport where Drake sat.

"No, he holds no more esteem in my eyes then your own. If you hate him such why not rebel?"

Drake waved his hand over the holo-emitter. A holograph of Sela jumped up. "Because I could never go home, my wife and children would be lost to me, perhaps even murdered. I can't do that, I can't put them in such risk."

"I hear you old friend. My wife shot me a message right before we left. She had her first brood."

"How many?"

"Seven."

"It is difficult to be away from home when you have little hatchlings hopping around. That is why I want to go home after this."

"I can almost see you. Drake the farmer, feared adversary of all those who would stand against the Planet Trade, now feared only by weeds and bugs."

"Dirt is easier to clean, than the corruption in my soul."

"If such a thing exists."

"It does, the Great Dragon formed our bodies with his scales, but he foraged our fiery rage hearts with his own breath. From the fire in his belly came the fire in our souls."

"You are one of the few this high in our race that stills believes in the old ways."

"In light of our current allies, the ideals of honor, morality, and courage became outmoded. Sela is not the world I was born on."

"Orbital Dawn." Over the planet's horizon, the sun rose. It was always a sight that lifted Drake's mood. Today was the only exception. It was always a reminder of how the Great Dragon rose from the fiery core of the Universe to radiate its fire and forge the galaxies of the Universe, of how he went through the Universe and breathed his great power into races of the Universe. And in the end, he left the Universe; he had labored to create.

"Let's get this over with." He sat up and rushed out of his private sanctum on the Nightglider. The bridge was a cluster of confusion. "Captain, put my flagship on battle status and signal the Enigma to do the same."

Rex dropped to his station was to the right and forward of the command chair. Rex jumped onto the chair from behind and activated his tactical screens. "General, the taskforce is ready."

"Very well, have targeting form a ring in this sector." He pointed to a circle about 500 kilometers wide and in the area of the planetary defense screen. "Enigma, I want you to press your ship into the middle orbital plane and stationary fire on the platforms, assign priority to the lasers. Captain, have the Nightglider press just to starboard of the Enigma same orders, but priority to the missiles. Both ships are to use missile batteries for combat, use the power to the lasers to feed the interceptor systems."

Rex issued the orders and the engines kicked to life. He walked up to Drake. "Drake, wouldn't the lasers be better."

"No, they don't reload as fast and firepower is mote, these satellites aren't shielded." As if to demonstrate his point, the satellites in the area were quickly being blasted out of the sky. Rex looked at his screen and saw both ships had above ninety percent shielding. Satellites started to feed into the engagement zone. It didn't matter as soon as they reached firing range and oriented themselves, a missile hit them or dumb fired interceptor bolt. "See the enemy defenses, orbit wide are already dropping below fifty percent strength."

"I am sorry I doubted you."

"You did your job, if I had been wrong, I would have no one to blame but myself for ignoring you. The last expedition used only lasers and engines. They couldn't fire fast enough. Captain; order our ground commander to start deploying his landers. And tell him not to leave until I join him."

"You are going below General."

"Yes, Captain you don't need me to lead you through the rest of the space campaign. The Taskforce is yours, if we must fall back, make sure we have somewhere we have somewhere to go." Rex laughed as Drake left.

"Well at least he hasn't lost his heart yet." He pumped his arm in a gesture of strength. "Just make sure you come back old friend." He looked at his three-fingered claw. He reach below his armor to a small pouch and pulled out the fire red ruby pendent, the Pendent of the Dragonheart. He put it on his neck and grasped it. A terrible feeling overcame him, a dread of one who is being watched.



Planet Vegeta-

The boy was truly an interesting specimen. The son of a traitor, so willing to be accepted into a society which hated his blood. He could use this willing and naïve boy to his advantage. Raditz, the son of Bardock, would be a puppet, a pawn in a game of power.

The irony was delicious for in many ways, it was Bardock who made this all possible.

* * *

Raditz was surprised at the message. He read it again to make sure he was right.

Raditz of House Bardock, you are summoned to appear before the Deputation of the Noble Houses. This deputation will be on the 16th of the month, it will be on the grounds of the Dark Palace in Rebu. You are to appear in dress fit for the court.

The 16th was only three days away, a summons to appear before the deputation of the Noble Houses of the Saiyans was a high honor, or an invitation for pain. Raditz decided to know which in the next three days. The library system had a listing of all the Noble Houses, perhaps that would shed a clue.

Raditz pulled up a listing of the Noble Houses. It was an incomplete record, since any mention of House Vegeta was struck from the record. This left much of the houses histories deleted, especially during the time of the civil war. It wasn't until he hit House Zorn that he found something useful.

House Zorn is one of the most ancient Houses and the earliest kings of the Saiyans came from this House. Recently House Zorn has become distant from the other Houses, swearing allegiance to Paragus only after the Civil War. House Zorn has even moved its household residence from Planet Vegeta to Planet Meat. However, it stills holds an official residence at the Dark Palace.

The present Lord Zorn has recently become the head of Planet Trade intelligence, being the first Saiyan to achieve an administrative role in the Planet Trade. He is considered ambitious and skilled, by many of his peers.

"Hmm…ambitious, skilled, and apparently he holds a tentative allegiance to Paragus. Something is wrong here. The head of the deputation is Paragus of course, but. Computer, who is the chairman of the next deputation?"

"Lord Zorn."

"It's trap and Paragus is the target."

To be continued…

Chapter 5- Victory Day

The war on Arlia comes down to a duel between the champion of the Arlians and the Selan Drake. The Resistance makes a finally push to take Kanassa as Prince Vegeta recovers from a severe injury and learns a powerful lesson. An assassination plot can elevate one man to a position of supreme power or restore one man to his honor. And the cruel truth behind the mysterious Paragus is revealed.